• Trump signs executive order aimed at lowering drug prices

    Trump signs executive order aimed at lowering drug pricesOn Friday, President Trump signed a new executive order which lowered the cost of drugs by tying them to the price consumers pay outside of the United States. Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), joins The Final Round panel to discuss the impact that this could have on the pharmaceutical industry.

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  • Outlook on U.S. economic recovery amid COVID-19

    Outlook on U.S. economic recovery amid COVID-19Investor’s Advantage Corp Founder and President John Grace joins Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita to discuss the country’s economic outlook amid renewed lockdowns in some states as COVID-19 cases climb.

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  • Former Bridgewater Co-CEO Murray Escalates Feud With Firm

    Former Bridgewater Co-CEO Murray Escalates Feud With Firm(Bloomberg) — Bridgewater Associates former co-chief executive officer Eileen Murray escalated a feud over her departure, accusing the $138 billion firm founded by billionaire Ray Dalio of threatening to withhold her deferred compensation because she went public with gender discrimination allegations.Murray, 62, has been negotiating with the world’s biggest hedge fund for three months over her exit package — a fight that has dragged on because Bridgewater’s offer was less than what has been paid to men who left the firm and below the status of her position, according to one of Murray’s advisers. It was the third time since 2017 that the firm had offered her compensation that was lower than that of male colleagues of comparable levels, according to the person.In her suit, filed Friday in federal court in Connecticut, Murray says the firm told her in writing on July 14 that her public disclosures about her dispute with the company will lead to forfeiture of her deferred compensation, which she said could range from $20 million to $100 million. She called the firm’s attempt to withhold the deferred pay an “improper gambit to silence her voice” and a “cynical plan to intimidate and silence her.”Murray has joined several boards since she left Bridgewater in April, including being elected chairman of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in June. She said that and other business opportunities required her to disclose the existence of her gender discrimination, unequal pay and breach-of-contract dispute with Bridgewater.Bridgewater didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Murray joined Bridgewater in 2009 and became co-CEO two years later. When she departed in April she was the lone woman among the top four non-investment executives at the firm, and the longest tenured other than Dalio.Murray also stands as a role model for women, the suit said, and she “feels a personal duty to uphold the principles of fair and equal treatment that she has publicly avowed for women in the workplace.”Bridgewater can play hardball with employees. In late 2017, the firm took two former staffers to arbitration, accusing them of stealing trade secrets. Earlier this month, arbitrators found the company brought the case in bad faith to slow the duo’s progress in opening their own money management firm, according to a filing in New York state court. Bridgewater said it accepted the panel’s decision.Bridgewater’s main hedge fund lost 20.6% in the first half of this year, and the firm said on Friday it’s planning job cuts because it won’t need the same number of support staff as more employees work from home and new technologies are changing the types of people it needs to serve clients.The case is Murray v Bridgewater Associates, 20-cv-1052, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut.(Updates with background from the suit in fourth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  • Teradyne, Inc. Just Beat Analyst Forecasts, And Analysts Have Been Updating Their Predictions

    Teradyne, Inc. Just Beat Analyst Forecasts, And Analysts Have Been Updating Their PredictionsTeradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) defied analyst predictions to release its second-quarter results, which were ahead of…

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  • A Look At The Fair Value Of Gravity Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRVY)

    A Look At The Fair Value Of Gravity Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRVY)Does the July share price for Gravity Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRVY) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate…

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  • Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rise and are Poised to Test All-time Highs

    Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rise and are Poised to Test All-time HighsGold prices finished the week on an up note, rising 0,75% and closing the week up more than 5%. Optimism in the US continues to fade as more workers now believe their temporary job losses will become permanent. US yields continued to move lower, helping to undermine the greenback, and paving the way for higher gold prices.

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  • Intel ‘Stunning Failure’ Heralds End of Era for U.S. Chip Sector

    Intel ‘Stunning Failure’ Heralds End of Era for U.S. Chip Sector(Bloomberg) — Intel Corp.’s decision to consider outsourcing manufacturing heralds the end of an era in which the company, and the U.S., dominated the semiconductor industry. The move could reverberate well beyond Silicon Valley, influencing global trade and geopolitics.The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the largest chipmaker for most of the past 30 years by combining the best designs with cutting-edge factories, several of which are still based in the U.S.Most other U.S. chip companies shut or sold domestic plants years ago, and had other firms make the components, mostly in Asia. Intel held out, arguing that doing both improved each side of its operation and created better semiconductors. That strategy is in tatters now, with the company’s factories struggling to keep up with the latest 7-nanometer production process.After Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan said Intel is considering outsourcing, the company’s shares slumped 16% on Friday, the most since March, when the stock market plummeted in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.“We view the roadmap missteps to be a stunning failure for a company once known for flawless execution, and could well represent the end of Intel’s computing dominance,” Chris Caso, an analyst at Raymond James, wrote in a research note on Friday.Swan says where a semiconductor is made isn’t that important. However, domestic chip production has become a national priority for China, and some U.S. politicians and national-security experts consider sending this technical knowhow overseas to be a potentially dangerous mistake.“We’ve seen how vulnerable we are,” John Cornyn, a top Senate Republican, said in June when U.S. lawmakers proposed an estimated $25 billion in funding and tax credits to strengthen domestic semiconductor production.Intel’s Xeon chips run computers and data centers that support the design of nuclear power stations, spacecraft and jets, while helping governments quickly understand intelligence and other crucial information.Many of these processors are made at facilities in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. If Intel outsources this work, it would likely be done by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which focuses on production and is currently the world leader. It’s based in Hsinchu, one of the closest Taiwanese cities to China, which considers the Asian island a rogue province rather than an independent country.“With the latest push out of process technology, we believe that Intel has zero-to-no chance of catching or surpassing TSMC at least for the next half decade, if not ever,” Susquehanna analyst Chris Rolland wrote in a research note. He thinks Intel should sell its plants to TSMC, although he says that’s unlikely.Over the years, Intel has spent tens of billions of dollars updating its factories, and all of Swan’s predecessors touted them as a crucial advantage that kept the company ahead of the rest of the industry. As the largest chip producer, Intel benefited from economies of scale and attracted the most experienced engineers and scientists.The rise of smartphones and other mobile devices changed all that. Intel dabbled in mobile chips, but never committed its best production and design to the area, preferring to prioritize its existing PC and server chip businesses. When smartphone sales took off, phone makers used other processors from companies like Qualcomm Inc. or they designed their own, like Apple Inc. And TSMC factories churned these components out.While Intel makes hundreds of millions of chips a year now, TSMC produces more than a billion annually. That’s given the Taiwanese company more experience to improve its factories, helping TSMC’s engineers overtake their Intel counterparts in technical execution.Read more: Intel’s Chipmaking Throne Is Challenged by Taiwanese UpstartSwan said on Friday that Intel’s products are still the best, despite the manufacturing delays. But by opening the door to outsourcing, the CEO endangers one of the last bastions of U.S. technology leadership.“By outsourcing leading edge technology, presumably to TSMC, Intel would give up what has been its main source of competitive advantage for 50 years,” Caso of Raymond James said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  • Moderna says patent ruling not to affect COVID-19 vaccine development

    Moderna says patent ruling not to affect COVID-19 vaccine developmentAn administrative court run by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday rejected Moderna’s arguments to invalidate a U.S. patent owned by Arbutus, sparking worries over its efforts to develop next-generation vaccines, including a coronavirus vaccine. Moderna said the court’s ruling relates to actions it took in response to “longstanding aggressive posture” taken by Arbutus against developers of nucleic acid-based therapeutics and began well before the development of mRNA-1273, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

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  • What’s really driving the gold price to record highs puts ASX gold miners on upgrade path

    figurine of a bull standing on gold bars

    The spot gold price surged to its highest level since 2011 on Friday and a new tailwind is likely to lift it above its all-time record high.

    The precious metal jumped another 0.8% at the end of the week to US$1,902 an ounce and is now less than US$20 away from its peak of US$1,921 per ounce set nine years ago.

    While many of the factors supporting the safe haven asset was touched on many times before, the tailwind that’s drove the gold price above the psychologically important US$1,900 level isn’t so obvious.

    Gold finds a new friend

    This is the weakening greenback with the US Dollar Index (a measure of the US dollar against a basket of other major currencies) slumping to a two-year low.

    The US Dollar Index slipped 0.4% on Friday to 94.35 and has fallen over 8% since the height of the COVID-19 market meltdown in March.

    The other big drivers of the gold price are well documented. Record low interest rates and money printing by central banks, including Australia and the US, have created a favourable backdrop for the commodity before the exchange rate gave it the extra push to retake US$1,900.

    Tailwinds to persist

    What’s more, the US dollar tailwind isn’t abating. You don’t need to be a technical analyst to see that the chart is indicating the path of least resistance is down for the almighty dollar – at least in the near-term.

    US Dollar Index (DXY) – 1 Year

    Gold price chart - 1 yr

    Source: Market Watch

    The inability of the US to control the rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths is behind the bout of US dollar weakness. No one believes this situation is about to change anytime soon and this means its currency will remain under pressure.

    Lack of safe havens to fuel gold’s bull run

    The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency and a safe haven for nervous investors. But when the problems in the US are this deep, investors aren’t willing to shelter under the dollar.

    This has implications for the other globally recognised “risk-free” asset – US government bonds. While the value of these bonds will likely hold up well in any crisis, investors could still be nursing a loss on the currency unless they hedge this risk. This adds an additional layer of cost and complexity.

    A similar thematic is emerging for the Japanese yen with the risk of a second wave outbreak emerging in the country.

    Gold likely to keep running through 2021

    Gold is standing tall as the world runs out of safe haven assets, and I don’t believe this uptrend will turn until the US dollar regains its risk-free status. This probably won’t be until sometime in 2021 or 2022.

    What this means is that gold is likely to breach the US$2,000 level – something that I forecasted in April. If it does, it may very well stay above that bullish level for much of the next 12 to 24 months.

    ASX gold miners on consensus upgrade cycle

    As most analysts aren’t forecasting the yellow metal to break and hold above its 2011 record high, this could prompt them to upgrade their earnings forecasts and valuation for ASX gold miners.

    This could see major producers like the Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX: NCM) share price, the Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN) share price and Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) share price rise further in FY21.

    The only thing is that investors may now favour ASX gold stocks with overseas mines instead of local operations.

    When gold was rising before the COVID-19 outbreak, it was doing so while the Australian dollar was falling. This gave local gold mines an extra boost as their cost base is denominated in the weakening Aussie.

    The opposite is now happening in the second phase of the gold price rally.

    3 “Double Down” Stocks To Ride The Bull Market

    Motley Fool resident tech stock expert Dr. Anirban Mahanti has stumbled upon three under-the-radar stock picks he believes could be some of the greatest discoveries of his investing career.

    He’s so confident in their future prospects that he has issued “double down” buy alerts on each of these three stocks to members of his Motley Fool Extreme Opportunities stock picking service.

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    More reading

    Motley Fool contributor Brendon Lau owns shares of Evolution Mining Limited and Newcrest Mining Limited. Connect with me on Twitter @brenlau.

    The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

    The post What’s really driving the gold price to record highs puts ASX gold miners on upgrade path appeared first on Motley Fool Australia.

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  • Precious Metals Fire Warning Shot Across The Bow – Part II

    Precious Metals Fire Warning Shot Across The Bow – Part IIThis big breakout in Silver is nothing more than a phenomenal warning for all traders and investors – BE WARNED: RISKS ARE SKYROCKETING HIGHER.

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